#Health : The number of cases in Minnesota measles outbreak exceeds those recorded in the entire country !

"Many of the cases could have been prevented if people had gotten vaccinated," said Kristen Ehresmann, director of the Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Prevention, and Control Division at the state Department of Health.

"This outbreak has gone on now for eight weeks," she said. "This is a disease that is serious, and the opportunity to prevent it is one that we really need to be taking. ... We'd rather invest in preventing disease than spend funds fighting it. We want to focus on promoting health in those instances where we can rather than fighting disease."

Since the outbreak, at least 8,250 people have been exposed to the measles virus in Minnesota, mostly in schools, child-care settings or health-care settings, and there have been 21 hospitalizations, Ehresmann said.